


no [I] in team

by vaguehope



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Body Horror, Ending I (NieR: Automata), Gen, Mentions of 21O, Mentions of 2B, One Shot, Spoilers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguehope/pseuds/vaguehope
Summary: in an empty, white space, a boy waits. he waits alone. he waits for something he knows will never happen.





	no [I] in team

**Author's Note:**

> a hypothetical fic based on ending i, which haunts me to this day. set in route a for obvious reasons, but contains spoilers for route c/d as well. warning for death (guess who) & gore/body horror.

Elapsed time: 00:00:01

He falls to the floor. Whatever was holding him was gone – crumbling away as the machine that whispered everything he never wanted to hear fell to the floor with a wet thud, like a cold lump of flesh. He only knows for the sound, followed by the burst of hot, sharp pain as he hits the floor shortly after. His fingers twitch. There is no energy in his limbs, no energy at all – a body that is now full of holes, a body that surely must be replaced. He will not walk again. At least, not if he were human.

He is perceptive, and yet the fog in his brain and the uneasiness from the words still lingering in his mind still make him slow to realise the meaning of those footsteps. 2B. 2B. She had come for him. In all honesty, he hadn’t been sure if she would – hadn’t been sure if as a casualty he was worth it to YoRHa, hadn’t been sure if he even deserved to presume she would want to save him. He wasn’t sure. And so even as his processing lags, an uneasiness jumps in his stomach. A nausea.

A doubt.

The footsteps were getting fainter.

She was leaving.

 

Elapsed time: 00:04:43

He wants to think that it is a nightmare, but he knows all too well that they can’t dream. He wants to react in shock, but he knows nothing could shock him.

Well, why hadn’t she left him before now? It wasn’t as if 9S had anything to give her. It wasn’t as if 9S did anything but pester her on the surface, and ask her things that were too difficult for anyone to handle underneath. He knew that. He knew that, but…

 

Elapsed time: 00:10:21

It hurts. With only the sound of his own struggled breathing in his ears, he becomes terribly conscious of it – his body, the body he hadn’t felt while he was compromised, but could now feel all too well. It hurts. It hurts. _2B_. Somehow her name produces a dull throb, as the pain in his body pulsates and grows into a sharp point. He can’t put a finger on where exactly the pain is coming from. He isn’t intact pretty much anywhere. But if he were to be brutally honest, the thing that hurt the most was

 

Elapsed time: 01:11:45

He blacked out. Systems overheated. Or something like that. It wasn’t as if his pod was here to tell him what he was supposed to do. What he was feeling. What anything meant. As if they had ever told him anything that answered the real questions he wanted to ask.

Not that any of that mattered now.

Not now.

 

Elapsed time: 01:15:45

He takes a deep breath. He takes several. He tries to control his breathing enough to focus less on staying conscious and more on moving his limbs. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. A minute. He flattens one hand against the floor, relieved to find his fingers still move to his command. Gritting his teeth, he pushes, trying to prop himself up – weak, strangled gasps echoing throughout the empty space. Too quickly, his torso feels like he is being stabbed through all over again. _No… no_ — he couldn’t stop— if he stops trying now, he will never move again, he can feel it—

“A… aah… aaaaa _aarggh—_ ”

He falls forward onto his side, the pressure on the holes there making him cry out, eyes hot with tears, downward hand clenching and gripping the floor as he tries to

 

Elapsed time: 06:31:14

He blacked out again.

He thinks.

Staring forward across the open white, he watches the path where 2B left. Or she must have. He can see more now, but he’s otherwise achieved pitifully little. If he could move just a bit, then maybe he would find something down here that he could use to get himself out. Perhaps a machine. That would really be the best case scenario. At least, if he could find a machine, he could remote control it to find an exit. Maybe he could get help. If it was a big bipedal one, he could get lucky – carry his body out, get somewhere with people. Even just getting out of here, he might get a strong enough connection to send a distress signal through the network. If he could just get in contact with YoRHa…

If YoRHa would help him.

It’s possible. If 2B left, if his guesses were right – it’s possible YoRHa had decided to get rid of him. It wasn’t like he had actually more than thought about accessing the server. It wasn’t like he knew they had any reason to suspect him, except that he was generally untrustworthy, but…

He wouldn’t be surprised.

Besides, if 2B had been given orders, then he could understand.

Even if she hadn’t, he supposed… he could.

He was an annoyance. To YoRHa. That much was obvious. But he guessed he underestimated how much he must have bothered 2B. He guessed she wasn’t the open book he’d thought she was. He guessed the moments where he thought they’d meant something to each other were lies all along.

It would be easier if he could think that.

It would be easier if that was the only option. There was never only one.

 

Elapsed time: 06:51:33

He has to keep moving. If he doesn’t move, he will die.

He will die for sure.

(If he leaves, he might die too.)

He flattens his hand against the floor again, grits his teeth together, and begins to scream.

 

Elapsed time: 09:24:11

His cheek is pressed against the floor. His systems did not give him the luxury of unconsciousness this time. Having managed to shift his balance just enough to fall forwards, his stomach lies flat against the ground, one arm jammed underneath, his side pressing his entire body weight into a bloody hole within it. He cannot move it. He has tried. Something in him has given up. Overheated. A system failure. What would he know? The method to his insides were always locked away to him, relayed through a pod that wasn’t even here.

But he cannot move.

He moved a little, he thinks. An inch. The inch that comes with falling. That is all that he has achieved, in the wet lines down his face, and the blood trickling from his lip. Perhaps once his body listens to him again, he will be able to roll over the next way. Eventually, he will roll a full circle.

He’d thought his tears had been used up, but some were leaking out now. Pathetic. Soft, barely audible, he laughs. Without 2B… he really was

 

Elapsed time: 33:54:21

He slept. It felt a little different, than blacking out. Or perhaps he is only telling himself that. There was no real difference for them, after all. There was no real difference, and so…

He flattens his fingers against the floor. It’s all that he can do.

 

Elapsed time: 64:41:59

Did machines mourn their fallen? Or would that machine be forever left here, and 9S left with no way to get out at all?

He was resigned, at this point, to the fact that his body was broken. But there was no way he could never leave at all. Some machine would wander down here, and he would take control of it. He would never lose control. He could never. He would pull himself out of this, and…

Maybe someone out there would help him. Someone. Anyone.

2B was out of the question, he supposed. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to solidify in his mind, the distrust he couldn’t help but entertain in the event that things went sour, the distance that was maintained between them even if he tried to break it – but she had solidified it for him. He had liked to think that it would never have ended like this. There were endings he long ago realised were coming, and behaviour he expected even if he didn’t like it, and then there was the sound of her footsteps, echoing across the emptiness, as he struggled to breathe. Right before her eyes.

He wonders if 21O would listen to him. He supposes there would be warnings about his absence, by now – at least if this were a normal situation. He knows well enough that his own disappearance might not be a mistake, or unwanted even if it was. Perhaps 21O knew about it too. Perhaps she knew about it all along. Surely, even if she knew nothing until now, she wasn’t going to protest about him going missing. An operator’s job was to watch over the soldier to which they were assigned. But it wasn’t to protect them against orders. And it wasn’t to care for them.

He thinks he could trust 21O, if he could get in contact with her. He holds onto that thought like a lullaby. It was only a lie. A white lie, in a cold, white place.

 

Elapsed time: 137:12:28

He thinks he heard a noise. His chest skips. 2B. It’s 2B. At some point, she must have she realised her mistake, and came back for him.

She is just the same as usual. If brighter. Softly smiling, lips parted as if in faint regret, as she crouches at his side. The words from her mouth like warm water washing over him, easing the fire in his wounds. “Let’s go home.” A hand reaching out to brush the hair from out of his face. _Let’s go home._ He doesn’t know how to tell her, that he doesn’t have a home. That he hasn’t had one for a long time, that he realised it the moment she walked out and left. He can’t tell her. His mouth doesn’t make sound anymore. Yet she decided it was a mistake. To take him in her arms now…

It was not a mistake. He knows that. And yet his mind can’t help but entertain the thought, lingering on her, her image echoing long after he realises the noise didn’t exist except in his own processors. It would not be the last time.

 

Elapsed time: 282:34:01

He thinks he’s gotten used to the cold.

He thinks he’s gotten used to it.

 

Elapsed time: 745:14:32

He can’t get used to it. He can’t accept it. This ending – an ending where no way out presents itself – even if he’d known he would meet it eventually, he could hardly just lie down and pretend he was fine with it. He couldn’t pretend he was okay with being left behind. He couldn’t pretend he wanted it to end this way. What was 2B thinking? Perhaps she was saving herself. Perhaps she was to lie to the Commander, to never have to kill him. Perhaps that was what she wanted. To save herself.

And perhaps he couldn’t accept that.

His body aches.

The heart he doesn’t have.

She had every reason to run. He’d made himself so obvious – that he _liked_ her, that he wanted _her_ to like him. Even having known that she had orders from somewhere else, orders that meant she could never do anything but reject him. Even having known that those wishes of his would hurt her. Even having known that, had he ever let them go? Had he ever?

Had he ever just left 2B alone?

Perhaps that was what she had wanted. For him to stop following her. For him to stop asking after her. For him to never again touch her shoulder to make sure she is okay.

To be alone.

 

Elapsed time: 2160:23:42

He wonders how much time has passed, alone like this.

It feels like forever, and yet nothing. He hasn’t done anything, after all. Experimentally, he tries to press his hand against the floor, flat. His fingers don’t respond to his will.

 

Elapsed time: 8921:54:21

It’s the same as always. The same place. The same view. The same position.

It no longer hurts. Much. He thinks maybe it must, but he’s just gotten used to it. Pain, or no pain. He doesn’t know the distinction anymore. It’s always the same. She barely even crosses his mind anymore. Something far away. Something that existed in another time.

If only that were true – if only he wasn’t a liar. If only she ever left. If only she wasn’t present in the back of his mind, an absence that feels solid, looming – an absence that created a chasm within him. An absence he would tell himself he had no right to be angry about, that he ought to have seen coming. An absence that even as he ached made him feel so bitter.

You left me.

2B –

Why

 

Elapsed time: 17812:31:55

He thinks he sees her again. Lingering in the distance. He doesn’t entertain the idea that she might have returned, not like the first few times he imagined her – but he is faintly surprised that he still remembers. That silhouette. The poised, practised way she walks, with grace, with a strength that could destroy him. He would never know why she didn’t. Or maybe, by not doing so, she did.

It’s not something he can fully blame her for. She must be doing better, now. Perhaps, now he’s gone, they’re winning the war. Perhaps she’s been able to retire and rest, like he conjectured in a dream one day with her, a day among grass peeping through concrete and footsteps at his side, laughing that she’s too serious, laughing that such a future almost seems possible, even if it never was. That dream seems so far away it might never have happened. He might really have dreamed it. Wholeheartedly.

2B could not be a dream. He could never dream her up. She was someone that defied definition. He’d thought that he’d understood her, thought he’d known her far more than she would ever know him. Yet he was the one left here, outwitted without wit, wondering what was real and wasn’t real. Wondering if anything had ever been real.

He laughs – his mouth opens, lips parting emptily, weakly, no sound coming out at all. If he were to say he didn’t hate her a little, then he would be

 

Elapsed time: 70081:50:32

He hopes they’ve won the war by now. He doesn’t know how broken they must be if they haven’t. Intruding upon this world without ever having the right. Spreading more and more brokenness in their wake. Meant to die alone, hated by all else in this world.

 

Elapsed time: 157680:23:19

He is losing his vision. Or the world is falling away at the edges. It pulses and darkens and then stays that way, half of the world sharply cutting off into pitch black. If this place was ceasing to exist, then he would accept it. He would embrace it. It’s been too long. Even those memories, that he’d held close to his heart, that he’d never wanted to forget – that he’d valued more than his own life – even those, he would give them to the void. He waits for it to get bigger. He waits for it to swallow him whole. For it to end this endlessness, this timelessness, this world that kept on going. This self that kept on going even after he lost his purpose to exist. Even after she left him.

It doesn’t get bigger, but it does shift, sometimes, on the rare occasions he coughs, and his head ever so slightly moves. It moves with him. The crevice in the world. It’s a crevice in his eye.

He’s beginning to fall apart.

As if the world would ever have answered his prayers.

 

Elapsed time: 273943:59:42

Slowly, slowly.

A piece of skin on his neck peels away, and falls to the floor, before his nose. He stares at it, with what he has left.

Soon, he thinks. Soon he will be gone. Soon, something vital will break

Soon, he won’t be able to think anymore

He wonders how close he is to that moment. Wonders if he could touch it.

Wonders if anyone might ever find him

Wonders what they could think.

 

A monster then, and a monster now

Now, reflected in his body, crumbling in on itself.

2B

 

Elapsed time: 392445:13:55

Soon, he thinks

Soon

 

It will be soon.

 

2B

There’s somethinggggggggggggggggggggggg

 

Elapsed time: 536224:54:12

2

 

 

2B, I

I

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2


End file.
